


deadboy.tv

by starsinew



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Masturbation, Obsessive Hinata, Podfucking, Somnophilia, Voyeurism, mild public humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 10:26:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12252492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsinew/pseuds/starsinew
Summary: Just Hinata, a machine, and a dead boy.[au where alter ego lied about protecting komaeda's privacy and hinata can't quite keep himself together]





	deadboy.tv

**Author's Note:**

> please mind the tags on this one guys - it's not exactly the most wholesome content, between coma sex and hinata being a general mess. set immediately prior to 2.5.
> 
> peep the lovely artist's conception™ by old m8 yndr4hope and be thoroughly shaken: https://twitter.com/yndr4hope/status/915046081246978048

**INITIATE PSYCHODIVE SEQUENCE 2?**

It's only one failed attempt, Hinata tells himself (once, twice, enough times to lose count) - nothing to panic about, even if the others had come back after one. He has hope, after all, and there's no way Komaeda would ever-

Hinata swallows, drums his fingers against the keyboard before he executes the command sequence. 

The clack of they key is loud in the sickly light of the room. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**INITIATE PSYCHODIVE SEQUENCE 4?**

Sonia sets the plate down beside him on the desk. A casual glance reveals it’s carrying a sandwich and an apple. Hinata feels a surge of gratitude through the weary haze settling over his mind - he's suddenly aware of the fact that he isn't sure of the last time he ate. 

“You programmed it to look like you,” she remarks, leaning over as if to get a better look at Alter Ego, impassive observer, on the screen. 

Hinata isn't sure what to say to that.

“I guess I did,” he says, finally, reaching a hand out for the keyboard. “Say hi, Alter Ego.”

“Hello,” it says in Hinata’s voice, inhuman, far too familiar. 

_ Clack.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  


There's one other way Komaeda is different from the others. They'd all had a feed from wherever their minds were, drifting in the Program. For the others, Hinata had made a point of not using it too much - just enough to prove there was something to bring back. 

It felt wrong, to look. Intrusive. Hinata knows he wouldn't want someone peeking in on  _ his  _ subconscious. 

Komaeda’s feed had been blank from the beginning. Hinata sat there for the entirety of the few hours of the first psychodive, silent with his arms wrapped around himself, fingers biting welts into his own biceps waiting for Alter Ego to come back.

“Critical psychological instability induced by the trauma of his suicide.” There's something about Alter Ego that makes his stomach twist, its impassive stare and twin red eyes, the flatness of its voice, this mirror of himself that he'd created but almost can't bear to look at. He had for this, though - couldn't have looked away even if he tried, hanging onto every thread of the machine’s words. “Where the others were confined to a higher stratum within their minds, Komaeda Nagito’s mind created additional layers as a method of self preservation. I am currently attempting to calculate the layers of strata, but it is proving difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“Think of it as a labyrinth. His mind has created a complex network of strata. It is unpredictable. Deliberately.” Alter Ego never blinks. “His mind is protecting itself from further trauma.”

“But he's not gone,” Hinata whispers. 

Alter Ego shakes its head. “He is still present. Reviving him will be impossible without accessing the deepest stratum.”

Hinata feels a swell of hope, strong enough to leave his head spinning. He's beginning to understand why Komaeda had seemed so unsteady so often. “Then that's what we'll do.”

Komaeda’s still in there. That's all Hinata needs. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


He'd been meaning to wait for Komaeda to regain consciousness before subjecting him to the same physical the rest of them had gotten from he and Tsumiki. Six failed attempts to wake him is enough to make Hinata realise this might not be over so quickly. He's haunted by the things Komaeda told him in the Program, shrugged off tales of terminal illnesses that Hinata knows now he'd been stupid to doubt.

He's been trying not to look too hard at what he knows is in the pod.

He's afraid he might not be able to stop looking, once he starts. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Sometime during the tenth sequence, Hinata starts talking to Komaeda. 

It's not like he expects a response. It's just that the hub is lonely, save for the rare times one of the others comes to check on him. It's getting less frequent, now that most of them are back. 

Hinata understands. There's something nauseating about the steady blue glow of the hub, the endless humming of machines, Alter Ego’s persistent stare. He'd be in the sunlight, too, if he could - if it didn't feel  _ wrong  _ on his skin, knowing Komaeda is trapped in his own head. 

It makes him feel less insane, somehow, having someone to direct his idle musings at as he slaves over code, runs diagnostics, initiates psychodives. Komaeda had always listened. Hinata figures he’d gotten used to it, during the Program. Enough to miss it, maybe, now that he's not there to listen anymore. 

Enough to wonder how things might've been different if Hinata had listened to  _ him  _ more. 

Alter Ego is intelligent enough to respond to his questions, but Hinata had given up on that early. It's easier to interact with Alter Ego typing through the console - that way he can more or less avoid his own gaze, hearing his own voice speaking back at him in that flat, inhuman way that's familiar enough to make his skin crawl.

“You couldn't just make things easy for me, could you?” he sighs across the room at Komaeda, blinking tired eyes as he grapples with the system code. He's trying, still, to dig deep enough to get some kind of feed online - if only for an instant. 

Just a glimpse, he promises himself. That's all he needs. 

Later he finds himself hovering over Komaeda’s pod, looking down at him through the green tinted glass. He's wheeled over the trolley he and Tsumiki have been using for med checks - there's a purpose to this, and still it does nothing to quell his hesitation, the inexplicable flicker of guilt he feels.

He hasn't touched Komaeda since-

There's a hydraulic hiss as the airlock unseals itself, glass hatch sliding open. The pod’s temperature is controlled for optimum preservation, Komaeda pale and naked save for the thin blanket that covers him from clavicle to toe. 

He feels like a soda can that's been shaken up, looking at Komaeda like this, nothing separating them except empty oxygen. His fingers itch at pale skin turned blue beneath the lights, the steady rhythm of his breathing. His hands are trembling, when he reaches out. 

Komaeda’s skin is dry and cool to the touch. Hinata focuses on that as he sets to work, needle pricking against vein. Touch leaves him dizzy as the dam of his longing bursts, dampening his eyes and bleeding out from beneath his tongue. He takes from Komaeda, eyes flickering between pink rushing viscous through tubes and the boy’s sleeping face, and tries not to think about how he probably isn't the first. 

Seeing Komaeda bleed comforts him, on some reptilian level. The dead don't bleed. The pod isn't a casket. 

Hinata refuses to let it be. 

Blood sloshes gently against the sides of the last tube as he caps it off, sets it aside with the others. He stares down at Komaeda’s face as he stems the bleeding off with gauze, unsure of when his breathing became so heavy. 

He doesn't remember, exactly, how he ends up in the pod, face buried against Komaeda’s neck, pressed up against his still body. 

Komaeda’s always left him feeling weak. 

“I still cared about you, too.” His words are distorted, mouthed against brittle hair. “‘Til the end.”

Silence. Just the rhythmic inhale-exhale of Komaeda’s chest, his steady heartbeat echoing against his ear. 

_ Did you know?  _ he wonders,  _ When you- _

He jerks, launching himself almost bolt upright, at the flurry of beeps that spew in a sudden stream from the main console. 

“Psychodive sequence failed,” Alter Ego informs him. “Shall I retry?”

Hinata doesn't answer - just buries his face against Komaeda’s neck again, squeezing his eyes shut, dizzied by how his heart is racing, the sudden shot of humiliation, feeling like he's been caught red-handed. 

_ It's just a  _ **_machine,_ ** he spits at himself mentally,  _ It doesn't know what you're doing, it doesn't  _ **_care_ ** _ - _

“Shall I retry?” asks Alter Ego again. 

“ _ No,”  _ Hinata almost growls. When he blinks he realises his eyes are blurry, and he huffs out a laugh at himself, self-loathing a bitter taste at the back of his throat. “Just. Let me…”

He trails off. Alter Ego says nothing more. 

“Alter Ego,” he calls out, after a moment. “Can he hear me? The things I'm saying?”

He knows it's stupid, sentimental, irrational. 

“No,” says the machine. 

He huffs out another laugh. “Didn't think so.” He loses most of it against Komaeda’s skin. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Reprogramming Alter Ego had been easy enough, with his well of plagiarised talents. He'd been enough of a fool to hope that might've been the end of it. 

But it hadn't, and it won't be. 

Not until they  _ all  _ come back. 

**INITITIATE PSYCHODIVE SEQUENCE 17?**

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, and pushes like he's trying to force them back into his skull. 

They  _ will _ all come back

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**INITITIATE PSYCHODIVE SEQUENCE 19?**

Hinata’s starting to wonder if Komaeda would even  _ want _ to come back. 

He wonders what it says about him, knowing he wouldn't stop trying, even if Komaeda didn't. 

“You're in remission,” he says, because it's been weighing on his mind ever since he finally pushed himself into finishing Komaeda’s blood work. 

He wonders if Komaeda knew, before-

_ Clack.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The only real proof any time has passed at all is the number of aborted psychodive sequences ( **22** ) staring back at him in ghostly red text. He could ask Alter Ego, he knows, how long it's been. It's just he doesn't care enough to. 

He's bitten his nails to shreds, splintered keratin catching against his hair every time he moves to push it back from his face. 

Hinata knows the saying about insanity. 

The despair creeps in, an itch at the nape of his neck, a slow, syrupy hum slicking all the way down his brain stem. It's unthinkable, a  _ sin _ , almost, to doubt. 

Hinata is no stranger to sin. None of them are. Not anymore. 

His fingers won't stop itching, lately. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


His hands tremble - triumph, exhaustion, fear. Hinata isn't sure. 

“Shall I activate the feed?” Alter Ego asks. He's been talking to it more and more. He knows it means something, that he should be worried, maybe, but he doesn't have enough of himself left to care. 

He shouldn't look. He  _ knows _ he shouldn't look. 

(But that hadn't stopped him from losing sleep messing with the Program until he  _ could _ , had it?) 

Alter Ego looks at him with his own eyes, devoid of emotion, devoid of judgement. Hinata isn't sure why part of him expects judgement. It's not like he'd programmed it that way. 

He takes a deep breath. 

“Show me,” he says. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It's a mistake, and the worst part is Hinata had known it would be. He's silent and still as he stares at the screen above Komaeda’s pod, breath trapped in his throat. 

He hadn't been ready for  _ this.  _

Hinata knows this place well enough to sicken him. His memories of the main building are fuzzy, a mix of sickly green glow, mainlines, sedatives, blank faces. Later it had been blood sprayed on his face and the glassy eyes of the dead, but even still, he'd spent enough time poring over the Hope's Peak Academy website as a teenager to recognise those classrooms anywhere. 

Of course, Hinata thinks, Komaeda’s mind would choose this as a safe place. 

The sight of the tan uniform makes his gut lurch, hard enough that he has to bury his face in his hands and double over. He thinks he's about to lose it for one burning, terrifying second - and then it's over, just leaves him trembling a little, a sinking pit in his gut. He makes himself raise his head before he's quite gotten himself together, because he's worked himself to the point of insanity to see this, and it's too early to give in. 

Aside from that little detail, it's the Komaeda he'd woken up to in the Program, more or less, replacing the gaunt, pale shell sleeping beside Hinata. Still sickly, dark beneath the eyes, but his face fuller, eyes constantly  _ shimmering  _ with emotion. Happiness, in this present moment - Hinata watches him toss his hair and laugh at something the Souda onscreen’s said to him. 

His fingertips itch. He wants to take his desperate, longing hands and set them to Komaeda’s face, feel out the smile and canonise it, the stretch of pink lips and saliva on teeth. 

“Alter Ego,” he whispers, and he thinks the machine says something in response, only he doesn't know what, so entranced by Komaeda’s smiling face as he is. 

He sits on the edge of Komaeda’s pod, eyes wide and aching as he forces himself to drink in every single waking moment of Komaeda’s dreaming world.  _ Just a glimpse,  _ he sneers at himself. 

His skin crawls a little as he watches - he feels like a trespasser, some kind of pervert, an interdimensional stalker, a  _ god _ , maybe, watching Komaeda daydream through class, stop in at the convenience store during lunch, go for drinks after school with Souda and Kuzuryuu-

It's so-

“Normal,” he murmurs, with a pang in his heart. It's the last thing he ever would've expected from Komaeda. 

Hinata’s never been so aware of his ambition and twisted little ego as he is in this moment, searching for a glimpse of what he  _ needs _ to see. Not a reserve course uniform in sight. Hinata can't help the sharp grin that eventually splits his face, the way his hands screw into fists so tight his ragged nails bite against his palms. 

“I'm not there,” he whispers, when the truth becomes too obvious to avoid acknowledging any longer. 

How fucking stupid, abject, _pathetic_ it feels, knowing that he doesn't have a place in Komaeda’s dream world, when his own world feels so empty without him. 

“Alter Ego,” he says, “I…” He chokes a little, has to clamp a hand over his mouth and take a deep breath before he can force himself to continue. 

“Did he die hating me?”

“That data is not known to me.”

“ _ Then what fucking  _ **_use_ ** _ are you?!”  _ Hinata hisses, slapping an open palm against his thigh. His voice echoes off the high walls of the room, amplifying the emptiness - just Hinata, a machine, and a dead boy. 

Alter Ego remains unrattled - of course. “My use is to perform psychodives, as programmed.”

Hinata buries his face in his face in his hands. That, he understands - having purpose forced onto him, having his existing code ripped apart and twisted into something new. 

At least Alter Ego is  _ capable  _ of fulfilling its purpose, Hinata thinks to himself, bitter enough to make his stomach lurch again. 

The desire to never resurface locks him in place for a moment. Yelling at a machine will do him no good, he knows. It's just he's tired of feeling like  _ nothing  _ is doing him any good. 

“He doesn't…  _ remember _ me?” His voice cracks like he's choking down glass. 

“Hinata Hajime does not exist in this world,” Alter Ego says. “Memories of you are inaccessible even to his own mind. ”

“... What about Kamukura Izuru?” He's desperate. The thought of not even  _ existing  _ to Komaeda-

He'd rather be hated. He'd rather Komaeda try to kill him again. He'd rather  _ anything,  _ than be  _ nothing.  _

“As I said,” says Alter Ego, “You do not exist in this world.”

Hinata has to smile at that, bitter and sharp. “Well.” His voice croaks with the pressure of tears. “I guess it's not the first time I've been erased.”

_ Is he happy?  _ he almost asks. 

Onscreen, Komaeda laughs. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


He isn't sure of how much time he sinks, watching Komaeda - only that it's probably too much. He doesn't think he even makes it five minutes watching Komaeda read in his dorm bed before sleep before he's scrambling to get the pod hatch open. Exhaustion tumbles into him at the sight of Komaeda in the soft light of his bedside lamp, looking warm and content and blissfully ignorant of the physical reality of his body. He can't help himself, wedging himself up against Komaeda’s body, taking touch from him the same way he'd taken his blood, cheek pressed to his shoulder so he can watch the simulated Komaeda unobstructed. 

Eventually, he watches as Komaeda set his book aside with a soft hum. He expects the lamp to flicker off, plunge the room into welcome darkness. 

It doesn't. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Komaeda isn't sure when this unusual sense of warmth first washed over him - only that suddenly his pulse is quicker than it really ought to be, and there's a pleasant tingle prickling against his skin. He puffs out a little sigh, rolls his eyes up to focus on the ceiling for a moment. Then he breathes out a laugh at himself, skimming his fingers across the elastic of his underwear. He tucks his fingers beneath the band and pulls, tugging it down enough to expose himself to the empty room. 

The air is cool against his suddenly flushed skin. He licks his lips, breathes out a sigh. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“No fucking  _ way,”  _ Hinata whispers, eyes wide enough to hurt. 

Neither Komaeda is in a position to reassure him, one currently silent and unheeding beneath him, the other swiping his fingers through the sticky gloss smeared around the head of his cock. Hinata is mesmerised by Komaeda teasing himself on the screen, knows he shouldn't be seeing this, knows that it's  _ wrong  _ for him to be seeing this, but-

He wonders, heart skipping a beat as he watches Komaeda wrap thin fingers around his cock, if this is luck playing some cruel joke on him. 

It's not like it would be the first time. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


It feels like  _ pressure,  _ squeezing up against the edges of his ribcage. Komaeda is used to it, the gnawing, indistinct neediness that eats away at him in moments alone like this, but this is different, strange, like he's  _ longing  _ for-

_ For what _ , he wonders, turning his head to the side, letting his eyes drift half-closed as he tightens his fist around his already twitching cock. He bites the inside of his lip as he settles into a rhythm, lets his hips arch up off the bed like they want to, knows it won't be too long, that whatever it is has already made a thorough mess of him. 

_ Longing for what?  _

  
  
  
  
  
  


Hinata realises can feel Komaeda’s cock through the blanket, stiff and jutting into his stomach. For a second he's so delirious that he squeezes his eyes shut and grinds back against Komaeda. He freezes, eyes snapping open again, when an indulgent moan fills the room, loud,  _ too  _ loud, and Hinata  _ shouldn't- _

He forces himself still as he looks up at the screen, mouth open as he pants a little with sheer exhilaration, because Komaeda  _ hadn't, couldn't have- _

Another moan slips from Komaeda, needy and loud enough thanks to the speakers to make Hinata’s face flush dark. Hinata is frozen in place for a moment, powerless to do anything other than stare with increasingly blurry eyes at Komaeda, lost in the friction of his own skin, unfocused eyes and heavy lashes, teeth digging into his lower lip muffling the little whimpers crawling out of his throat. 

Slowly, as if he's trying not to be seen, Hinata raises his hips, giving himself enough room to slip his hand in between himself and Komaeda, palm flat against the firmness he feels beneath the blanket. 

He isn't sure why he bothers with the discretion. It's not like it would save him, if someone were to walk in. 

  
  
  
  
  


Something  _ jolts  _ \- inside him, Komaeda thinks, but it feels like it's  _ everywhere,  _ suspended in the air around him, thick enough to breathe in. It rips a shallow gasp from his throat, and his hips snap all the way off the bed as his body claws for-

_ What?  _ he thinks again, but it doesn't matter, because before he can even finish thinking the word it's there again, bright liquid pressure surging down his spine, bleeding out into every synapse, every nerve in his body. He's moaning with every stroke now, can't help the way it's all spilling out if him. He's not sure it's ever been raw like this, almost  _ aggressive _ , enough to scramble his mind to the point where he  _ couldn't  _ think of anything in particular, even if he wanted to, even if he  _ wasn't  _ content to let this unfamiliar blazing  _ need _ tear straight through him. 

He tries to focus on the feeling, pictures reaching out with his mind and his heart to meet it, let it swallow him whole. It feels like-

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Come on,” Hinata murmurs, wrist working with determination as he helps bring Komaeda off through the blanket, too frantic and wrapped up in watching the other boy come undone to be ashamed anymore, “Come  _ on-” _

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ Sunlight,  _ is the last thing Komaeda thinks, before he shatters. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Komaeda doesn't make it to the tissues. Hinata gets to watch him come all over himself, graceless and desperate, back curved all the way up off the bed in a perfect, trembling arch. He shudders, because it's almost too much for him, the feeling of come soaking the fabric beneath his still-moving hand, the  _ sound  _ Komaeda makes on the screen, a throaty, needy cry that breaks into a whisper when his voice cracks. Hinata is dead silent, heart racing fast enough to dizzy him, as he watches Komaeda come down, taking this delicate vulnerability from him the same way he'd taken his blood, his touch. 

Turned on his side like he is, when Komaeda finally opens his eyes, glossy and dark and distant, Hinata could let himself believe Komaeda’s looking at  _ him.  _ It's irrational, Hinata knows,  _ impossible,  _ because he's stared at this manifestation of Komaeda’s mind long enough to know that there aren't any cameras in this world. Still he finds himself paralysed, mouth bone dry, loathing himself for the way his heart leaps at this synthetic eye contact. 

Then Komaeda closes his eyes again, and the spell breaks, and Hinata’s lurching up and away from the still body beneath him so quick and sudden he finds himself on the floor. 

All at once, he can't even bear to bring himself to  _ look  _ at Komaeda. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Dozing and wrung out, all Komaeda thinks of is sunlight reflecting off the ocean, splintering into a million glittering fragments. 

_ Strange _ , Komaeda thinks.

it's been so long since since he's seen the ocean. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Still shaking and reeling, Hinata busies himself with mundane tasks as best he can. Rips the now sticky blanket off Komaeda. Shoves it, balled up, into some forgotten corner. Washes his hands. Lingers far too long with his arms crossed over his chest, pretending his hands aren't shaking, before he makes himself look over at Komaeda, naked and flushed and streaked with his own come, and still, utterly motionless, silent. 

His hands clench into fists at his sides. He'd been so desperate for connection he'd almost let himself believe it was real. Komaeda’s total lack of response as he goes about cleaning up the mess he'd made serves as a cruel reminder. 

“Idiot,” he hisses around the lump in his throat, tears welling at the corners of his eyes, “ _ Idiot.” _

He can think of one place to hide them. He swallow down all the shame and the self loathing, forcing himself to taste it as he crawls over Komaeda’s body and lays down with him. 

The slow, heedless rhythm of his breathing feels like a cruel taunt. 

Still, he falls asleep to vision of sated Komaeda, mind so tired he could almost convince himself he's falling asleep with someone he might wake up with in the morning. 

He wakes up alone, realising it’s the longest he's slept since graduating from the Program. 

Hinata could get used to this, if he had to. He thinks the thought should horrify him more. But Hinata’s always hated it - the idea of being  _ nothing.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  


Hinata blames curiosity. 

They'd put him through a rigorous psych evaluation, before the Project started. He doesn't think they would've called it curiosity in his file. Pathological ambition, narcissism, maybe-

_ God complex,  _ he thinks to himself, tangling his fingers up in Komaeda’s hair. It might just be his imagination, but he thinks he sees Komaeda twitch a little, on the screen. He keeps his eyes focused up above, leaves one hand in Komaeda’s hair, tracing the other down to skim his thumb across Komaeda’s lower lip. Onscreen, Komaeda might shiver. Might. 

Hinata knows he isn't a god. It's still impossible not to feel like one when he slips his hand beneath the thin blanket, watches Komaeda’s shoulders tense as Hinata feels him up. They remain tense as he curls his fingers around his cock. 

“He can feel me,” he says aloud. The mere thought makes his breath catch in his throat. 

Alter Ego takes it as a cue to report, apparently. “He isn't aware of you, specifically. You are provoking an indistinct sexual response in his central nervous system.”

Hinata breathes out a scathing little laugh at himself as he rubs Komaeda, at the thought of Alter Ego being an entirely unaffected voyeur to whatever stunt Hinata thinks he's pulling. 

He tells himself he's not quite sure what that is yet. 

“Interesting,” he murmurs, spine tingling at the way Komaeda is stiffening beneath his hand. A quick glance down tells him this is the extent of physical Komaeda’s response. He turns his gaze back to the screen, watching a shudder rake across Komaeda’s shoulders, face awash in mild confusion. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The classroom chatter around Komaeda burns up into static as his mouth goes dry and a flash of heat rips through him, making his hips jolt in his seat. 

_ What?  _ he almost squeaks out, because he's had urges at inopportune moments before, but never like  _ this,  _ so sudden and blazing and almost  _ painful.  _

It's eight thirty in the morning, and he's hard under his desk. 

He digs his fingertips into his thighs and forces a breath out, slow and shaky and deep. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Hinata is silent as he watches a flush crawl across Komaeda’s cheeks, eyes wide with visible alarm and shame as they dart around the classroom as if seeking an answer to the question plain on his face. 

Hinata, more than anything, wishes he could answer. 

Need riddles him, gnawing at his core with needle teeth and a savage kind of starvation. It swirls together with the giddy delirium of proof - that Komaeda, on some level, is aware of him, can  _ feel _ him. That he isn't erased - not quite. 

Hinata gives in. Refuses to think about madness. 

The creak of his zipper easing open feels too loud in the room. He spits into his palm, drags his fingers through saliva, keeps his eyes trained on the Komaeda on the screen. 

The Komaeda beneath him is lax, when Hinata reaches out, pushing his thighs back so he can get his fingers inside. 

Hinata’s given up on telling himself he should be bothered more by things like that. None of it matters. 

Not when there's only one thing he really wants. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“ _ Ah! _ ” Komaeda yelps when a particularly savage jolt rakes down his spine. He can feel himself breaking out into a sheen of sweat. 

“Komaeda?” Souda asks, but Komaeda barely registers it, or the concern in his voice, choked by panic and heat as he is. 

He claps a hand over his mouth to stifle the moan that threatens to escape him, when he feels his cock twitch, followed by a wet pulse leaking out against his underwear. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


There's a part of Hinata that almost expects Komaeda to be cold when he pushes inside. 

He isn't. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth, hoping it'll keep the tears back. 

It doesn't. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


There's a scrape as Komaeda jumps to his feet, a clatter as the chair hits the ground, and then he's gone, sprinting as fast as his shaky legs will carry him. He doesn't quite make it to the bathroom before the tears start. He almost collapses into a stall, slamming the door shut behind him and throwing a blind, trembling hand out to lock it as he puts his back to it. He's shaking too badly to stand unsupported, winds up sliding all the way down until he hits the floor. He slaps a hand over his mouth hard enough to hurt, squeezing his eyes shut as he slides his other hand down to apply pressure to where his cock is hard and stubborn and needy against the confines of his uniform trousers. 

“ _ What,”  _ he sobs, muffled by the flesh of his palm, “ _ I- ahh-!” _

His thoughts dissolve in a warm, syrupy rush, and he gives himself over to the tremors running up and down his spine, his trembling limbs and the way his hips jerk erratically. He presses down harder against his cock, like there's a chance of it helping. If anything it just makes him burn hotter, hips arching up off the floor, desperate for his own touch. He tears his hand away with a groan, pushing his hair back from his face and finding it damp with sweat. He sinks his fingers into the strands and  _ yanks,  _ and even that doesn't distract him from this alien sensation pulsing hard and fast inside of him. 

“Oh,” Komaeda moans, eyes blurring even more as it  _ twists  _ inside of him, and he pulls his knees up to his chest and doubles over, “Oh, god,  _ oh _ -”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Komaeda’s sobs drip with neediness. It only makes Hinata fuck him harder, tense and shaking with the same need coursing through him. He keeps one hand pinning Komaeda’s thigh back (hard enough to bruise, maybe - to give something Komaeda to wake up to) and reaches up with the other, raking his fingers through the other boy's hair in some mangled attempt at affection only one of them will benefit from. 

“Komaeda,” he rasps, “ _ Komaeda,  _ I-”

He forces himself to ignore the tearstains glimmering on Komaeda’s sternum. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Komaeda can't shake the feeling of being  _ watched,  _ but that's  _ stupid, impossible.  _ The mere thought makes him hitch with a sob, someone  _ seeing  _ him like this, trembling and twitching and making a mess in his uniform trousers untouched. 

The feeling intensifies, crawling and suffocating, and he can almost  _ feel  _ the gaze like hands on his skin, grabbing and bruising. But that's not quite right, he realises, when there's another  _ jolt,  _ strong enough to make him clench his teeth and throw his head back hard enough to knock it against the door. It's like a fist, plunging beneath his skin and grabbing at his nerves like wires and  _ pulling _ like it's trying to tear them loose, tear  _ him  _ loose-

  
  
  
  
  
  


They breathe together, loud and filthy and awful in the emptiness of the hub. Hinata’s harsh panting sobs swirl together with Komaeda’s own desperate, hitching moans, and underneath all of it, slow, steady breathing coming from beneath him, like a heartbeat. 

If Hinata closed his eyes, maybe he could pretend-

  
  
  
  
  


Komaeda knows it’s close, whatever  _ it  _ is, knows  _ he's  _ close, about to lose it, shivering and moaning mindlessly on the floor of the school bathroom like he's been drugged out. He hasn't, he knows, because he's been dosed enough times as part of Hanamura’s antics to know what it feels like, and it's nothing,  _ nothing  _ compared to this, this total lack of control over his own body and mind. 

When he manages to slit his eyes open next, he realised he's drooled right onto the tiled floor beneath him. He doesn't have the presence of mind to do anything but shudder helplessly. A loud, broken cry escapes him, and his eyes roll back in his head-

  
  
  
  
  
  


“ **_Fuck_ ** _ ,”  _ Hinata snarls, voice thick with tears and shaky with exertion, “ _ Komaeda-!” _

He comes, hard, inside the still body beneath him, and even with the shock of relief, it's  _ still _ not enough to feed whatever’s gnawing at him. 

Not when those eyes don't see him. 

He tastes salt on his lips when he sinks down on shaky limbs to press his lips to Komaeda’s. He thinks about the taste transferring, whether or not it will still be there, when Komaeda finally-

  
  
  
  
  
  


When Komaeda finally opens his eyes, for a split second, all he sees are glittering fragments, like shards of the sun's reflection are stuck in his eyelashes. 

He blinks. It all falls away. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Alter Ego,” Hinata says. His voice is calm. Somehow. “Listen to me.”

Red eyes stare at him. He thinks he gets it, now - the reason he must've programmed Alter Ego to look like him. 

“One by one,” he says to the machine, his voice flat, toneless, “Piece by piece. Tear it down. Leave nothing behind. Offer no mercy. Spare no one.”

And only now does his voice crack. His eyes are stinging. 

He can't stomach the distance. 

He can't stomach being  _ nothing.  _

“Bring him back to me.” 


End file.
